Tran­script of Radio Show: The His­to­ry of the USA, Pro­gressed New Moons, and the Peri­ods of Devel­op­ment in the USA chart

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

I thought that we would con­tin­ue our look at the his­to­ry of the USA, by exam­in­ing how the series of Pro­gressed New Moons in the USA chart pro­vides a frame­work for under­stand­ing its his­tor­i­cal unfold­ment. I, and many Astrologers, have found that the series of Pro­gressed New Moons in an individual’s chart is quite illus­tra­tive of the struc­ture for that person’s life, and we will find the same is true with regards to a nation’s chart as well.

Our show last time focused upon the crit­i­cal role of Neptune’s posi­tion in the USA Chart (along with Plu­to and Uranus), and its cyclic move­ment through the heav­ens in its 170-year jour­ney around the sun (and through the USA’s chart), illu­mi­nates some of the crit­i­cal moments in our his­to­ry. More espe­cial­ly, Nep­tune high­lights the crit­i­cal junc­ture we find our­selves in today (which resem­bles or car­ries res­o­nances with the 1850’s and 1860’s). What we will see is that the pro­gressed Sun/Moon cycle also shows how impor­tant our moment today is as well.

A New Moon in a chart is like the plant­i­ng of a seed that unfolds over the next 29 years. It is one of the ele­ments that can help us under­stand what is pro­pelling the Spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment of that enti­ty, in this case a Nation. The sign of the New Moon will be one key to its inter­pre­ta­tion, along with the House in which it occurs. We will also find illu­mi­nat­ing the halfway point of any Lunar cycle when the Moon and the Sun are oppo­site to one anoth­er, which is the Full Moon, and should be seen as a moment of Rev­e­la­tion or cli­max of that Sun/Moon cycle.

Though many his­tor­i­cal events occur in each peri­od, my inten­tion here is to observe the devel­op­ment of the USA with regards to its foun­da­tion­al pur­pose, that we were to be a nation based upon the prin­ci­ple of equal­i­ty and jus­tice for all, as we stat­ed to the world in our Dec­la­ra­tion of Independence,

“We hold these truths to be self-evi­dent, that all men are cre­at­ed equal, that they are endowed by their Cre­ator with cer­tain unalien­able Rights, that among these are Life, Lib­er­ty and the pur­suit of Hap­pi­ness. That to secure these rights, Gov­ern­ments are insti­tut­ed among Men, deriv­ing their just pow­ers from the con­sent of the gov­erned”.

That promise of equal­i­ty, of found­ing a covenant com­mu­ni­ty based upon the spir­i­tu­al truth that we sup­port each person’s right to free self-deter­mi­na­tion, was bro­ken at our birth, and it is still to be real­ized ful­ly to this very day. This is the sto­ry of Amer­i­ca, as it is for all human and spir­i­tu­al progress; we are imper­fect, and we must strive every day to become what we are meant to be, lov­ing one anoth­er as we love our­selves and all this Cre­ation too.

1787
The first New Moon for the USA was in 1787 at 24 degrees of Can­cer in the 8^th house. Can­cer is the sign of the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence and is astro­log­i­cal­ly the sign of our Roots and Foun­da­tions, of where we come from. 1787 was the year when the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Con­ven­tion began, com­ing to an agree­ment to form the coun­try into a con­sti­tu­tion­al-rep­re­sen­ta­tive repub­lic. But more than half of the del­e­gates to the con­ven­tion were slave own­ers, and our con­sti­tu­tion specif­i­cal­ly enshrined the right to own black peo­ple. In 1789, George Wash­ing­ton, also a slave own­er, became the first Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. (And we can­not for­get, that out of the first 12 Pres­i­dents, only 2 did not own slaves).

The Full Moon in 1802 was in Aquar­ius, which is where the Moon is in the USA natal chart. In 1804 New Jer­sey becomes the last north­ern state to abol­ish slav­ery. And, in 1808, the impor­ta­tion of slaves into the Unit­ed States is made ille­gal (but from then until 1860, more than 250,000 slaves are smug­gled into the US). The Amer­i­can Sto­ry, the ardu­ous and painfilled path we are on towards a true democ­ra­cy and the ful­fill­ment of our stat­ed ide­al of equal­i­ty was set in place and remains to this day.

1816
The sec­ond New Moon was in 1816 at 22 degrees of Leo in the 8^th house. The sign of Leo is about lead­er­ship, it rules self-affir­ma­tion by self-expres­sion, courage, and lead­er­ship. This peri­od began with the preser­va­tion of the USA as a sep­a­rate nation after the defeat of England’s attempt to take back its for­mer colonies in the War of 1812. The north­ern bor­der for the USA was fixed between Cana­da in an agree­ment with the Unit­ed King­dom, and the offi­cial US flag is adopt­ed, with 13 bars & stripes and a field of stars. The Mis­souri com­pro­mise was adopt­ed allow­ing for it to be admit­ted as a state with slav­ery but bar­ring any future slave states west of the Mis­sis­sip­pi, and in 1830 Con­gress approves the Indi­an Removal Act to relo­cate all Native peo­ples who live east of the Mis­sis­sip­pi river.

The Full Moon of 1831 begins with Nat Turner’s slave revolt in which 57 whites are killed (and he is cap­tured and hanged), and with the infa­mous “Trail of Tears”, the forced reset­tle­ment of the Chero­kee Nation over the course of six years. This is also when the ter­ri­to­ry of Texas begins its attempt to break free of Mex­i­co and declare inde­pen­dence, and it remains a con­test­ed region between Tex­ans and Mex­i­co until the Mex­i­can War of 1846.

1846
The third New Moon was in 1846 at 21 degrees of Vir­go in the 9^th house. Vir­go is the sign that gov­erns the prin­ci­pal of Order and Orga­ni­za­tion, of the dri­ve to greater Whole­ness. This peri­od encom­passed the dra­mat­ic expan­sion of the ter­ri­to­ry of the USA through the War with Mex­i­co and the seizure of the lands that would become the states of Texas, New Mex­i­co, Ari­zona, Neva­da, Col­orado, Utah, and Cal­i­for­nia. The prin­ci­pal rea­son for the War with Mex­i­co, was Mexico’s attempt to reassert con­trol over Texas and ban slav­ery in the ter­ri­to­ry. Texas slave own­ers rebelled, and the USA joined in the cause of lib­er­at­ing Texas from Mex­i­can con­trol and influ­ence, and by this inter­ven­tion pre­serv­ing slav­ery in Texas. But the cause against slav­ery was mount­ing through­out the coun­try, and this peri­od brought about the cli­max in this strug­gle over whether slav­ery would con­tin­ue or be ended.

It is quite remark­able to note that the Full Moon for this cycle occurred in 1861, when the Civ­il War com­menced. Of course, we can note that this is the same peri­od in which the tran­sits to the USA chart had both Plu­to square to Plu­to, and the pas­sage of Nep­tune oppo­site Nep­tune and square to Mars that we are wit­ness­ing in 2021 again, and that we will expe­ri­ence our very first Plu­to return in 2022. The ener­gy-forms of our Civ­il War are echo­ing around us once again.

1876
The fourth New Moon was in 1876 at 20 degrees of Libra in the 10^th house. Libra is the sign that gov­erns the expe­ri­ence of Rela­tion­ship, which to me is the field of ener­gies form­ing our expe­ri­ences with one anoth­er. The strug­gle for free­dom and equal­i­ty that was achieved after the Civ­il War was bro­ken as the Recon­struc­tion of the South­ern States end­ed dur­ing this New Moon. This turn­ing away from jus­tice hap­pened with the dis­put­ed elec­tion of 1876 which was resolved when Repub­li­cans came to an agree­ment with Democ­rats. The Repub­li­cans would take the Pres­i­den­cy, but with the under­stand­ing that Fed­er­al enforce­ment of Recon­struc­tion would end. What fol­lowed was the sys­tem­at­ic exclu­sion of black voic­es and vot­ers in the South, which con­tin­ued until the 1960’s. This was also the year that the US ordered all native peo­ples onto reser­va­tions lead­ing to the War with the Sioux and the Bat­tle of Lit­tle Big Horn.

The cli­max of this cycle was the Full Moon in 1890, and the Mas­sacre at Wound­ed Knee becomes the last and most trag­ic act in the Wars against the Native peo­ples, end­ing the US Mil­i­tary cam­paigns against Native Amer­i­cans. This peri­od is also when the indus­tri­al growth of the coun­try leads to the rise of what will be come be called the “Gild­ed Age”, with tycoons and major monop­o­lies ris­ing to pow­er in the US econ­o­my and influ­ence over the polit­i­cal world. This con­cen­tra­tion of pow­er led to the ris­ing cho­rus of pro­gres­sive reform­ers seek­ing to both address eco­nom­ic injus­tice and cor­rupt polit­i­cal systems.

1905
The fifth New Moon was in 1905 at 20 degrees of Scor­pio in the 11^th house. Scor­pio gov­erns the prin­ci­pal of Union, of Joint Ven­tures and the Pow­er of Alche­my. In this peri­od, Ted­dy Roo­sevelt began his sec­ond term and the Pro­gres­sive move­ment, that had begun in the late 1800s con­tin­ued to make strides in reign­ing in the excess­es of the Gild­ed Age and Monop­o­lies, as reform­ers attempt­ed to cre­ate a more equi­table eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal order. Among the reforms, this peri­od sees the enact­ment of a Nation­al Income Tax and the direct elec­tion of Senators.

The Full Moon of this peri­od is in 1920 and begins with women secur­ing the right to vote with the pas­sage of the 19^th amend­ment, which is the great­est expan­sion of the right to vote in the USA ever. This advance­ment is fol­lowed in 1924 when Native Amer­i­cans are des­ig­nat­ed Cit­i­zens of the USA and become eli­gi­ble to vote as well. Of course, by the end of the 1920’s the coun­try and the entire world descends into the abyss of the Great Depression.

1935
The sixth New Moon was in 1935 at 20 degrees of Sagit­tar­ius in the 1^st house. Sagit­tar­ius is the hold­er of Truth, of how we under­stand and know our­selves and our world and embody these in our con­duct and laws and prac­tices. FDR took office in March of 1933, but it was in 1935 that the Social Secu­ri­ty Act was passed, for­ev­er chang­ing the rela­tion­ship of the peo­ple of the USA and their gov­ern­ment. World War II leads to the great­est col­lec­tive effort by the US gov­ern­ment as Amer­i­ca becomes the “Arse­nal of Democ­ra­cy” and with the Allied Pow­ers defeats Fas­cism in Ger­many and Japan in 1945.

The Full Moon in 1949 begins with Har­ry Tru­man hav­ing been elect­ed to the Pres­i­den­cy, and the post-World War II era begins with the Cold War with the Sovi­et Union, and nuclear arms race com­menc­ing and con­tin­u­ing under Eisen­how­er. The pan­ic over the threat of com­mu­nism leads to a series of vio­la­tions of civ­il rights dur­ing the 1950’s and 60’s. But this peri­od equal­ly wit­ness­es the ris­ing strug­gle for civ­il rights in the South and the North. Among the advances are a series of Supreme Court rul­ings like Brown vs Board of Edu­ca­tion. That rul­ing declared that seg­re­ga­tion, the pol­i­cy of “sep­a­rate but equal”, vio­lat­ed the 14^th Amend­ment, the very Amend­ment which was part of the abo­li­tion of Slav­ery, and had been rat­i­fied after the Civ­il War in 1868, and which guar­an­tees that all per­sons born in the USA to be cit­i­zens and requir­ing equal pro­tec­tion under the law.

1965
The sev­enth New Moon was in 1965 at 20 degrees of Capri­corn in the 2^nd house. Capri­corn gov­erns the prin­ci­pal of Respon­si­bil­i­ty and the Insti­tu­tion­al Order. The strug­gle for racial jus­tice and equal­i­ty from the end of World War II leads to the pas­sage of sev­er­al laws, includ­ing the Vot­ing Rights Act of 1965. If we are to have a democ­ra­cy, then each cit­i­zen must be allowed to vote, but the awful truth had been that since fail­ure of Recon­struc­tion in the 1870’s almost the entire black pop­u­la­tion of the South­ern States had nev­er vot­ed, because they were pre­vent­ed from doing so. Many his­to­ri­ans agree that this is when we might observe that the promise of Democ­ra­cy and equal rights was being made pos­si­ble in the USA for the first time in our his­to­ry. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the reac­tion of those who do not want equal­i­ty and jus­tice for all Amer­i­cans would begin their coor­di­nat­ed efforts to over­turn this progress.

After the Full Moon of 1979, and the elec­tion of Ronald Rea­gan in 1980, we were led by a Pres­i­dent who declared that the real prob­lem with the USA was our very own gov­ern­ment, and part of the solu­tion was to reduce the pow­er of the fed­er­al government’s pro­tec­tion of minor­i­ty rights. His admin­is­tra­tion enacts a series of con­ser­v­a­tive poli­cies that are direct­ed towards revers­ing the more equi­table divi­sion of eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal progress that had been achieved by both par­ties since the days of FDR in the 1930’s. What was the result? Just look at the trend­lines for eco­nom­ic growth for the USA from the 1940’s to 1980, and then from 1980 to today, and you will note the grow­ing inequal­i­ty of income and wealth that began in 1980 and has led to the wealth gap and crush­ing eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ties of today. This result was seed­ed by the poli­cies imple­ment­ed dur­ing this peri­od that began in the 1980’s. We have now in the 2020’s the most unequal dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth that we have ever had. The progress that we had made, of a more equi­table growth for most Amer­i­cans from 1940 to 1980 has been com­plete­ly undone and reversed from 1980 until now. And this is no acci­dent, poli­cies were pur­sued, tax laws were changed, and pro­grams end­ed so that the very few would ben­e­fit from the wealth that we all help to create.

1994
The eighth New Moon was in 1994 at 20 degrees of Aquar­ius in the 2^nd house. Aquar­ius holds the dreams of Human­i­ty, that one day we will indeed be broth­ers and sis­ters who live with jus­tice and equal­i­ty. But in 1994, aris­ing from the back­lash against the Civ­il Rights move­ment in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the polit­i­cal divi­sion of the coun­try shift­ed dra­mat­i­cal­ly, with a gen­er­a­tional move from demo­c­ra­t­ic to repub­li­can con­trol of the south­ern and west­ern states, which final­ly led to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives being led by a Repub­li­can major­i­ty for the first time in 40 years in 1994. Their stat­ed agen­da was to con­tin­ue the dis­man­tling of the pow­er and author­i­ty of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment, with the pur­pose being the elim­i­na­tion of social pro­grams that addressed pover­ty and dis­crim­i­na­tion. The con­tin­u­ing and unsus­tain­able warp­ing of income and wealth dis­tri­b­u­tion accel­er­at­ed lead­ing to the sec­ond great eco­nom­ic cri­sis in US his­to­ry in 2008.

The Full Moon of 2008 arrived as the Repub­li­can poli­cies to cut tax­es, remove reg­u­la­tions, and gut safe­ty pro­grams cre­ates the con­di­tions for the Sec­ond Great Depres­sion in US His­to­ry, lead­ing to the sur­pris­ing elec­tion of the first black pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, Barack Oba­ma. But once in office, the lead­er­ship in the Repub­li­can par­ty declares that their sole mis­sion is to make cer­tain that Obama’s pro­grams are thwart­ed. Nev­er­the­less, he is reelect­ed but is only able to imple­ment his reforms through most­ly exec­u­tive actions, which can be undone by a fol­low­ing Pres­i­dent. Then in 2016, Don­ald Trump is elect­ed to office with the stat­ed pur­pose of doing every­thing he can to reverse all of Obama’s reforms and advances. The con­tin­u­ing ero­sion of equi­ty and jus­tice in the US, and the mount­ing loss of faith in the sys­tem of self-gov­ern­ment dur­ing his four years, leads to his defeat in 2020 and the elec­tion of Joe Biden, a cen­trist demo­c­ra­t­ic now reborn as a reformer and heal­er for the nation. But Trump and his allies refuse to con­cede and pro­mote an alter­nate sto­ry of a stolen elec­tion. This lie pro­vokes an insur­rec­tion­ist mob to attempt to stop the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the elec­tion on Jan­u­ary 6, 2021. The images of riot­ers storm­ing the capi­tol, car­ries echoes of anoth­er per­ilous peri­od that holds sim­i­lar Astro­log­i­cal con­di­tions to our own, the late 1850’s and 1860’s.

This nation is divid­ed into two broad­ly and rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent ideas of the sto­ry of Amer­i­ca, and as Abra­ham Lin­coln stat­ed, “a house divid­ed against itself can­not stand…” One way or anoth­er, our divi­sions with­in our­selves and between one anoth­er will be resolved.

Which brings us to our next new moon…

2024
The ninth and next New Moon for the USA will be in 2024 at 20 degrees of Pisces in the 3^rd house. Pisces holds the final les­son and ulti­mate gift of Spir­it, as it is the vehi­cle of our Imag­i­na­tion, the source of our poten­tial to be and become what­ev­er we dream to be. But it also holds our great­est chal­lenge, the neces­si­ty that we over­come our fears if we are to become what we will be, if we are to build a bet­ter world. This is the sto­ry of Human­i­ty found at the core of Pisces, that we are here to acknowl­edge that we made what we are, by what we dream and what we fear, and we quite sim­ply must choose between thriv­ing by faith or suf­fer­ing in fear.

If we choose Faith, that we believe in our­selves and in one anoth­er, then we will remain on the Path of Love and the Way of Hope. We will look for the ways in which we can reach into the hearts of one anoth­er and see that we are broth­ers and sis­ters, know­ing that not even one of us can ever be tru­ly ful­filled until we all are free to be our very best too.

It seems quite sig­nif­i­cant to me, giv­en where we find our­selves today, that we will have this New Moon dur­ing our next pres­i­den­tial elec­tion of 2024, and I am cer­tain that we will see our time as the moment in which “Love and Under­stand­ing” was restored with­in us and between us, because the myr­i­ad chal­lenges we have cre­at­ed for our­selves can only be resolved by help­ing one another.

The promise of Amer­i­ca has nev­er been met, but over the last 250 years many coura­geous and lov­ing souls have moved us clos­er to Lincoln’s plea to lis­ten to “the angels of our bet­ter nature”. We can be among those who brought us that much clos­er to our ideals of Equal­i­ty and Jus­tice for all, if we remain faith­ful to our ideals, if we are guid­ed by our open minds, and if we act through our for­giv­ing and Lov­ing hearts.

Let it be so…